Today, as I stated in a previous post, I attended facebookcampToronto2 and I want to spend the next week or so discussing some of the aspects of facebook that should be of interest to new ventures, and to existing brands that want to expand and grow on facebook. But before all that, here are my rough notes from the evening. If you happened to be there, and there is something that I missed, feel free to add this in the comments. Due to technological constraints I was unable to live blog this, but I believe it is still relevant for those who did not attend and want to learn more about the event. You might also want to check out the Global Nerdy blog’s coverage of facebookcamptoronto2 as the presenters were talking really fast near the end due to time constraints, and so I may have missed a few points.
facebookcampToronto2 October 9, 2007 6:30-8:30
Location: MaRS Discovery District, Toronto, Canada
Intro – update from last FBCT (Roy/Colin/Andrew)
- fbFund currently accepting applications from developers for grants $25000-$250000 – these are generally not for growing a corporation or the like, but for developed the infrastructure capable of running facebook applications
- 5500 approved applications
- 84 applications account for 90% of the usage of applications
- applications are ranked according to functionality and are measured by daily active users of that particular application
- of the top 30 facebook cities, 11 of those cities are Canadian
1st Speaker – Ami Vora (Corporate Communications, Developer PR) from Facebook Inc. Presentation on the facebook platform and best-practices
Facebook growth
- approximately 45 million users
- facebook users double every 6 months and they expect this to continue
- 1 out of 5 Canadians is on facebook and 50% of these users return daily
social graph – she refers to these as the networks in the real world that can then be mapped onto facebook platform
photos application – not the most functional of applications (you can`t print, save) but the context makes it relevant – mapped into the social graph with tagging – still this photos application gets more traffic than all other photo sites combined
Ami emphasizes the importance of user relevance in creating a facebook app
fbFunds
- lower barrier to entry
- small no-equity funds
- she explains that these funds are not for hiring, getting offices, she implied that these are specifically meant to maintain servers to run the facebook applications
Ami lists a series of best practices for facebook developers and marketers:
- provide relevant information and content – interaction, fresh content, usability
- take advantage of all integration points
- develop and iterate
- intelligent promotion
- incorporate privacy
2nd up – Building an Application for a Brand (Michael Scissons & Janice Diner – Segal Communications) (No blog :P)
- the advertisers view – they are either have a facebook application or are thinking about it (this is the majority still)
- 44 of the facebook apps represent 2 million installs
- ways of advertising on facebook: sponsored stories, graphical ads, sponsored groups, flyers, branded application development100s of millions spent on advertising on facebook – by the year 2009 it is estimated that this figure will increase to 1 billion a year
- brand applications – social experience, personal publishing, links to other sites/applications
Some of the key features of a facebook app for branding:
- brand engagement that provides utility
- brand social network – links the brand to the social graph
- brand opportunity – new opportunity to access a new group of consumers
- some examples of branded applications
RED BULL – Roshambull – the goal here was to create an entertainment app that was enjoyed and shared
Washington Post – The Compass – asks you questions and displays your political view based on your answers on your facebook profile
TD Canada Trust – Split It – budget sharing facebook application – allows people to create their budget and send requests to their friends to `split` bills – this application was launched 6 weeks ago – there are under 1000 users of this application
>>> these applications seek to get consumers talking
And 3rd speaker: How Many ways can you Market your Application Inside Facebook? (Roy Pereira with RefreshPartners) Visit their blog
Points of entry to the user:
- advertising: banners, flyers, sponsored news, sponsored groups
- advertising in other applications – cross promotion or paying other applications to advertise yours – banners, in profile box
- application directory – making your title and description is key, also need a good icon
- external emails (it was mentioned that facebook may be thinking of deprecating the external emails function)
- notifications
- application page – here again it is key that the title, description and images here drive the userto install the application
- profile page – profile link, profile widget
- profile websites – list the links to your applications on your own profile page to encourage install
- status message – only a few applications use this point of entry
- message attachments
- share
- invite requests
- newsfeed
- minifeed (facebook will likely be merging these into one feed, so it will not be an issue to create both feeds – one feed will be used in both locations)
4th speaker – Top Applications and Why They Work (Jesse Hirsh)
- adonomics.com – seeks to be the main source for data on facebook application use
- fill void – increase facebook usability and pick up where facebook leaves off
- infectiousness
- simple, social, viral
- inviting, converting, engaging
- exchanges/expressions – narrate/collaborate
- integration/enhancement
- rating/reviews/favourites – engage need for social hierarchies
- EMPOWERING – organize personal/social life in fb
5th on the roster – Monetizing your Facebook Application (Greg Thomson from such applications as My Aquarium)
- he estimates that each active user is worth $3 per year
- 60% of his users generate 90% of his revenue
- 30% of his users generate zero revenue
- under 250,000 installs means the application has not been successful
- important to focus increasing user base in the US as this has the largest user base
- keep ads fresh and avoid plateaus
- Appsaholic from socialmedia – a facebook application that allows developers to track stats, buy and sell installs, and also find advertisers to sell ads on their application pages
- Google Adsense PPC ads – get money for each 1000 impressions or for click-throughs
- create an incentive built in the application to compel users to complete surveys/offers in order to enhance their facebook application experience
- **create a want**
- the most popular applications entertain
- cross-promote your applications – where you have a successful application, use that to help promote your new application
- selling applications:
- there is no record that any facebook application has yet been sold
- he estimates the cost for buying a successful facebook application should be $1 per install or $10 per active daily user
Last speaker for the evening – Secrets of PayPal interface used by Gift Cards Facebook Application (Steve Pritchard)
- on a java based server – can run on a PHP server with modifications
- the secret to this is synchronizing 3 threads: the canvas page, the iframe, and the paypal interface
- the Gift Card server mediates the communication between the PayPal and the canvas page because these cannot transmit information back and forth
- click 2x to pay – first to send the information to the GiftCard server at which time a second button will overlay the first one (in the iframe) and the information is then transmitted to PayPal and you are taken to the pay page
Three Demos:
Demo #1 – WishList (Bogdan Arsenie)
Demo #2 – DreamBook (Phil Tucker)
Demo #3 – Dogbook / Catbook (Geoffrey B. Roche)
2 PSPs were given away along with a facebook T-shirt
NEXT FACEBOOKCAMPTORONTO? Likely in December 2007 and there is discussion of facebookcamp weekend where an application is developed from start to finish in a weekend. :)
Photos: credit geirarne
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